Find Your Way Back Home
by Unoriginality
Summary: Things became familiar the more he saw. But it was the fall he remembered the best. (Winter Soldier spoilers, probably one of a million.)


Seeing familiar things triggered memories.

Seeing his face in the Smithsonian had set off an avalanche of feelings, images and impressions. He remembered the fall the best. Remembered reaching for Steve's hand. Remembered the horror of the free fall, the pain as he hit an outcropping and tore up his arm that eventually got replaced.

But he remembered Steve.

The first thing he did after seeing that was to hurry to the public restroom and puke his guts out. He'd shot his best friend. His only friend. He'd almost killed him in a fit of fear-driven rage. He knew, but hadn't wanted to believe. He only could hope someone found Steve and saved him after the Winter Soldier had dragged him out of the water.

He took several deep breaths, still crouched over the toilet, his stomach clenching painfully as it tried to upend nothing but stomach acid. He wanted to cry. But if he did, he'd just retch more, so he focused on breathing, focused on calming himself down, focused on ignoring the memories trotting around his head like a show horse. Calm. Calm down. He'd never be able to be anything but a human mess if he didn't calm down. He had to think logically.

Steve knew he was out there somewhere, and he knew Steve wouldn't give up on him.

Bucky wouldn't give up on him, either. Not when their friend was still out there.

He ignored the personality disconnect that just zipped through his mind. Not knowing how to be either persona he'd lived under was going to cause problems. Bucky's love for Steve had surfaced, caused him to save what should've been a successful mission, but the Winter Soldier still held a firm grip, those memories and conditionings clearer than anything that had just wandered into his head at seeing his part of the exhibit.

But he held no loyalty to Hydra. To his former superiors. That had gone with the betrayal, gone with Steve being Steve and not running away when he should've.

He remembered that. Steve never did know how to run when he should, and he remembered always being there to help him. If Steve wouldn't run away, neither would Bucky.

Straightening, he left the bathroom stall, pausing at the sink to rinse out his mouth. Brushing his teeth would be preferrable, but it wasn't like a toothbrush and toothpaste was something he carried around on him.

He wanted to see Steve again. He wanted to see, now that he knew who he was, had confirmed what he was told, if more would come back. If he'd be able to get his head on straight and be able to be Steve's friend again instead of a giant question mark.

The first place he checked was Steve's apartment, but it was abandoned, nothing but furniture. Steve's few belongings were gone, and there was no sign that anyone had lived there since the helicarriers went down.

Where did that leave? Had Steve gone back to Brooklyn? He doubted that. Steve would be looking for him, and that meant... what? Shifting through all of Hydra's files on the internet? He could do that from home. So why abandon his apartment?

He checked on Romanoff, wondering if she'd teamed up with Steve to track the Winter Soldier down. That hit a dead end, the woman had dropped off the radar entirely. Steve couldn't turn to Nick Fury, the man was gone. That left the flying man.

A search into him revealed a lot more; his name was Sam Wilson, code name Falcon. He'd retired from the military a few years back and worked VA now. He'd apparently gotten back into the saddle long enough to help Steve and the little band of modern day Howling Commandos take on Hydra again. It was possible he was helping Steve. He might even be letting Steve stay with him while they worked. It was a lead, at least.

Sam's home was easy to find. It was on record at the VA, and an easy lie and a bit of stealth got him the address. Google maps gave him a route.

He cased the house, checking for signs of life. Sam seemed to still live there, and after a second day of survelliance, he found that Steve was either over there a lot, or lived there now. Steve's apartment was compromised, Sam's home was probably safer. And didn't have giant bullet holes in the walls.

Without his usual equipment, he couldn't spy as well as he wanted, had to be content with remaining nearby, watching for when they came and went. Over a couple weeks he watched, marked their habits; they rarely left except for groceries and their morning exercise routines.

He waited one day until they'd left, their morning run where Steve irritated Sam by constantly running by him with the warning 'on your left'. He didn't get it, but he assumed it was an inside joke between the two. He almost wondered if Steve really needed Bucky back. He'd found new friends, had slid into modern day away from the days of Brooklyn and the army.

But Bucky had said he'd follow Steve to the end of the line. And Steve had promised him the same, even when neither one of them were sure there was anything left of Bucky to stay by.

They'd locked up behind them, but that wouldn't stop him from entering. He picked the lock, and stepped inside. It was a decent-looking house, comfortable. He counted the time he had before they'd be back, then set about investigating everything. He had to know they were looking for him. He wanted to see that they were, wanted to know that Steve still hadn't given up on him.

If he had, the Winter Soldier would go to the Ukraine and find Hydra again. Bucky would give up on himself if he had nothing to be Bucky for. Bucky would suffer guilt forever over the Winter Soldier, but if he were wiped again, frozen again, the memories would fade and he'd be left with the comfortable, cold mask of the Winter Soldier to hide behind.

But it was highly unlikely that Steve had given up. He didn't give up when it'd almost killed him, why would he give up now? It didn't make sense, and it didn't match up with what he remembered of Steve.

There were papers spread out on the kitchen table, some pushed aside for small plates that had strawberry juice on them. A banana peel half hung out of the trash as if it'd been tossed and not quite made it and left there. Slobs.

He sat down at the table, shoving aside the plates and looking over the paperwork. It was in Russian, and there was evidence of attempts to translate the writings. He knew Russian, he didn't need Steve's neatly scribed notes or what he assumed was Sam's horrible scribbles.

It didn't take more than a few lines to realize that this was the file on the Winter Soldier from the base he was created in. How did Steve get his hands on it?

His stomach threatened again as he read through what they had, memories of the traumas surfacing along with Bucky's determination to make it through and get home someday. Bucky had lost, but perhaps not as much as Hydra thought. Their mindwipes were never completely effective, it was being in cryo that had killed more of his memories than anything, but things always drifted back.

There was a picture in the middle of the table, a large photo of the Winter Soldier in stasis, ice frosting over the small window on the door to the cyro chamber. Paperclipped to the bottom of that was another picture, one of Bucky. He stared at it, remembered when that photo was taken. He was newly uniformed, that was his personnel picture from the Army. It must've gotten confiscated by Hydra after SHIELD was founded. No surprise there.

The file contained mostly information on the experiments, all of it in Russian. The folder all these papers belonged in was closed in the middle of the table, but there were still papers sticking out from it. He grabbed it, flipping it open. The papers were in English, the American army's file on him that had been taken along with his personnel photo. He'd been a sergeant, deployed to the 107th. The same as Steve's father had been. Steve had hoped for that deployment himself, but he couldn't get the recruiters to take him in. He remembered that.

Then the 107th were taken captive by Hydra. Most didn't get out, not until Captain America came charging in. Bucky had been chosen as a random prisoner grab for experiments by Hydra, that much had been in the Russian papers. The English files simply said he'd been a prisoner.

Steve had tapped him and a number of the other freed prisoners to be his personal team in taking out Hydra. The Howling Commandos, and Bucky had been his second-in-command, a cushy promotion that nobody questioned. Steve's group was unique in the army, answering only to a few special officers that had been originally involved in the super soldier project.

Some of this knowledge was just written in black and white before him. But the more he read, the more details came back that weren't in the file. He remembered asking Steve if that one last mission had been revenge for taking him on a carnvial ride and making him puke. "Now why would I do that?" Steve had said.

Then the fall. Then Hydra. Then Bucky had died.

But he wasn't dead. He'd just been asleep in a nightmare for a very long time.

But he was awake now, and fighting for control over himself again. But he wasn't sure he was ready to face Steve just yet, not after almost killing him. That thought made his stomach threaten again.

He heard chatting outside the door and he jumped to his feet, dropping the folder noisily on the table. The door handle turned, then stopped as it went silent. Bucky backed away from the table, looking for a window he could get out of that wouldn't put him right in their line of sight. There was one behind him, but it didn't look like it unlocked and raised. It looked like it was more for just letting in light than air. Well, they knew someone was there, he could break through the window and let them think it'd been a robbery attempt.

The door opened with a slowness that made his nerves crackle with fear of being caught and he all but ran to the window, using his metal shoulder to break the glass. His hand swept the edges, breaking off the broken glass his clothes could get caught on and crawled out.

"Bucky!"

Steve's voice made him hesitate outside the window, but only for a moment before he took off. Behind him, he heard Steve following him. "Bucky, wait!"

Bucky glanced behind him, realized Steve had jumped out the window after him and was almost catching up. He was just a tiny bit faster than Bucky, two super soldiers racing through a quiet neighborhood in D.C. Bucky willed more speed from his legs, rounding a corner and past some traffic. Ahead was a bridge over a busier-looking road. Escape looking hopeful, he lept up onto the railing.

"Bucky!"

The height and his name being called made him lurch, losing his balance into a fall that was a far cry from the graceful leap and landing that the Winter Soldier would've normally had. He was falling again, hearing his name called by Steve. Where would he end up this time? Would he die? He doubted that.

He didn't feel the hand grab his metal wrist, but he felt the jerk at the sudden stop from the free fall. He looked up. Steve had a hold of him, straining against gravity to pull him up. "Bucky, hang on!"

Bucky stared at him, hanging limply, then started to struggle, trying to get Steve to let go and let him fall. "Let go!"

"Not a chance!" Steve slid one hand up to Bucky's elbow to get a better grip.

"Let me go, Steve," Bucky said, hoping that for once, his friend would listen to him.

"Not happening, Bucky," Steve said, still holding his arm tightly. "You wouldn't let me go, I'm not letting you go."

"You don't know that."

Steve looked ready to cry. "Bucky, I know it was you who saved me from the water. I saw you before I passed out completely. You wouldn't give up on me, not even then. Please, give me your other hand, you're being deadweight here."

Bucky hesitated, but the memories were strong, very strong, fighting a winning battle against the Winter Soldier. He swung his flesh arm up to grab Steve's hand and helped Steve pull him up. Between the two of them, Bucky was quickly once again on safe ground on the bridge. He'd been caught. He hadn't fallen. He was safe, was still Bucky, Hydra hadn't gotten their hands on him again. It was an irrational thought, it was a bridge he almost fell off, not a mountain, and Hydra had withdrawn from America after Romanoff uploaded all their files to the internet. But the fear was there all the same.

Before Bucky could gather his thoughts past that blinding thought, Steve grabbed his shoulders. "Don't you run, don't you dare run," he said. Bucky stared at him as one might stare at a snake about to strike. "Don't leave me, Buck. Come _home_."

Home. That was a word he hadn't heard in a long damn time. Not _his_ home. He hadn't had a home since he enlisted. "Where's home?"

Steve gave him a shaky smile. "With me. Anywhere you want. We can leave D.C., or we can crash with Sam awhile, he won't mind. There's a guest room, we'll get a cot set up so we can share the room. Please, just don't run. I'll just have to chase you down again."

He'd do it, too, Bucky knew that. He'd never have a moment's peace, constantly on the run, to avoid being caught unless he started facing up to himself now, and with Steve's help. He almost answered, wasn't sure what words to use, but would try anyway, when Sam's voice came from behind him.

"Hey!" Sam was winded as he slowed to a walk, approaching Steve and Bucky. "Damn, you super soldier types. Always leaving us normals behind." He panted, then studied Bucky. "I'll dock the window by assigning you chores. I _am_ assuming that Steve's dragging your sorry butt back here, and you're welcome to stay, as long as you don't break anything else."

"Told you Sam wouldn't mind," Steve said.

Bucky looked between them, still feeling skittish, but calming down. He had wanted to wait until his head was screwed on straight before actually trying to make amends, but if he were honest with himself, that would never happen, not really. He had to take as much as he could get and hope that being home would help him heal.

Steve stood and held his hand out to Bucky. "Please. I lost you once, don't make me lose you again."

Bucky didn't grab his hand right away. "I tried to kill you."

Steve shook his head. "I don't care. You're my friend." He kept his hand out.

"Bucky, just take his hand so we can go home," Sam said. "He's missed you. And I wanna hear how many lies he's been feeding me about how things were when you two were younger."

"I don't remember enough for that," Bucky finally said after what felt like a minute of trying to speak.

"You will," Steve said. "Come on."

There was only another moment's hesitation before he grabbed Steve's hand and let his friend pull him to his feet. "Tell me to go," he said. "Or put me down. If things change, promise me that much."

Steve pulled him into a hug. "I'll never give up on you, Bucky," he said quietly. "Enough talk like that. You're Bucky, you're my friend, and we're going home."

Bucky felt his expression start to crumple with the desire to cry, and he took a breath, forcing back the tears. Home. Once he was sure his hands wouldn't tremble, he returned the hug, forcing himself to not cling too tightly. He didn't want to worry Steve, and his metal arm might cause bruising and he didn't want to hurt Steve ever again. "Fine, you win," he said in barely more than a whisper. "Just don't expect much. I don't remember everything."

Steve let him go to look at him, smiling through wet eyes."You will. Come on." He put an arm around Bucky's shoulders, pulling him towards home.


End file.
